Face to Face - Part 5 [Notes]

Lives were changed after an encounter with Jesus... lives of people just like you and me.

Today's Takeaway //  Freedom is found at the Savior's table. 

Sehnsucht

Sehnsucht has to do with an intense desire for something beyond our human capacity to fulfill. It is a sense that something is missing—something that, if fulfilled, would make everything complete.
– Dr. Andy Tix

“The longings which arise in us when we first fall in love, or first think of some foreign country, or first take up some subject that really excites us, are longings which no marriage, no travel, no learning, can really satisfy. I am not now speaking of that which would be ordinarily called unsuccessful marriages, or holidays, or learned careers. I am speaking of the best possible ones. There was something we grasped at, at that first moment of longing, which just fades away in the reality. I think everyone knows what I mean. The wife may be a good wife, and the hotels and scenery may have been excellent, and chemistry may be a very interesting job: but something has evaded us.”
– C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

We’re starving but settle for food that doesn’t satisfy.

For I have often told you, and now say again with tears, that many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their end is destruction; their god is their stomach; their glory is in their shame; and they are focused on earthly things.
– Philippians 3:18-19 (CSB)

"Giving in to the desires of our flesh does not lead us to freedom and life, as many people assume, but instead to slavery and, in the worst-case scenario, addiction, which is a kind of prolonged suicide by pleasure."
– John Mark Comer, Live No Lies

“What else does this craving, and this helplessness, proclaim but that there was once in man a true happiness, of which all that now remains is the empty print and trace? This he tries in vain to fill with everything around him, seeking in things that are not there the help he cannot find in those that are, though none can help, since this infinite abyss can be filled only with an infinite and immutable object; in other words by God Himself.”
– Blaise Pascal, Pensées VII

“If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.”
– C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of His disciples that are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in His name.
– John 20:30-31 (CSB)

After this, Jesus crossed the Sea of Galilee (or Tiberias).
– John 6:1 (CSB)

And a huge crowd was following Him because they saw the signs that He was performing by healing the sick.
– John 6:2 (CSB)

Jesus went up a mountain and sat down there with His disciples. Now the Passover, a Jewish festival, was near.
– John 6:3-4 (CSB)

So when Jesus looked up and noticed a huge crowd coming toward Him, He asked Philip, “Where will we buy bread so that these people can eat?” He asked this to test him, for He Himself knew what He was going to do. Philip answered him, “Two hundred denarii worth of bread wouldn’t be enough for each of them to have a little.”
– John 6:5-7 (CSB)

One denarius was the wage for a day’s work; even if the bread had been available, the disciples did not have nearly that much money.
– Dr. Edwin A Blum

One of His disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to Him, “There’s a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish — but what are they for so many?”
– John 6:8-9 (CSB)

Jesus said, “Have the people sit down.” There was plenty of grass in that place; so they sat down. The men numbered about five thousand.
– John 6:10 (CSB)

Then Jesus took the loaves, and after giving thanks He distributed them to those who were seated — so also with the fish, as much as they wanted. When they were full, He told His disciples, “Collect the leftovers so that nothing is wasted.” So they collected them and filled twelve baskets with the pieces from the five barley loaves that were left over by those who had eaten.
– John 6:11-13 (CSB)

When the people saw the sign He had done, they said, “This truly is the Prophet who is to come into the world.”
– John 6:14 (CSB)

The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own brothers. You must listen to him.
– Deuteronomy 18:15 (CSB)

Therefore, when Jesus realized that they were about to come and take Him by force to make Him king, he withdrew again to the mountain by Himself.
– John 6:15 (CSB)

The Bread of Life

The next day, the crowd that had stayed on the other side of the sea saw there had been only one boat. They also saw that Jesus had not boarded the boat with His disciples, but that His disciples had gone off alone. Some boats from Tiberias came near the place where they had eaten the bread after the Lord had given thanks. When the crowd saw that neither Jesus nor His disciples were there, they got into the boats and went to Capernaum looking for Jesus. When they found Him on the other side of the sea, they said to Him, “Rabbi, when did you get here?” Jesus answered, “Truly I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw the signs, but because you ate the loaves and were filled.  Don’t work for the food that perishes but for the food that lasts for eternal life,  which the Son of Man will give you, because God the Father has set his seal of approval on Him.”
– John 6:22-27 (CSB)

“What can we do to perform the works of God?” they asked. Jesus replied, “This is the work of God — that you believe in the One He has sent.”
– John 6:28-29 (CSB)

pisteuō

“John preferred the verb form to emphasize the act that is necessary for someone to be saved – total dependance on the work of another.”

“What sign, then, are you going to do so that we may see and believe you?” they asked. “What are you going to perform? Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, just as it is written: He gave them bread from heaven to eat.”
– John 6:30-31 (CSB)

Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, Moses  didn’t give you the bread from heaven, but My Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is the One who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” Then they said, “Sir, give us this bread always.”
– John 6:32-34 (CSB)

“I am the bread of life,” Jesus told them. “No one who comes to Me will ever be hungry, and no one who believes in Me will ever be thirsty again."
– John 6:35 (CSB)

Therefore the Jews started grumbling about Him because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” They were saying, “Isn’t this Jesus the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can He now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?”
– John 6:41-42 (CSB)

“When Jesus called Himself “the Living Bread,” He was not claiming to be exactly like the manna. He was claiming to be even greater! The manna only sustained life for the Jews, but Jesus gives life to the whole world. The Jews ate the daily manna and eventually died, but when you receive Jesus Christ within, you live forever. When God gave the manna, He gave only a gift, but when Jesus came, He gave Himself. There was no cost to God in sending the manna each day, but He gave His Son at great cost. The Jews had to eat the manna every day, but the sinner who trusts Christ once is given eternal life.”
– Dr. Warren Wiersbe

“Truly I tell you, anyone who believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life.  Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven so that anyone may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread he will live forever. The bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”
– John 6:47-51 (CSB)

From that moment many of His disciples turned back and no longer accompanied him. So Jesus said to the Twelve, “You don’t want to go away too, do you?” Simon Peter answered, “Lord, to whom will we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.”
– John 6:66-69 (CSB)

Freedom is found at the Savior's table.

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